1.  Tower

2.  Towel

3.  Trowel

I ended up in the Double Bed in Son 2 aged 21m’s room last night. With Son 2 and Son 1 aged 4y 9m. Didn’t work. Son 1 kept trying to reach across Son 2 to eyebrow me. Son 2 didn’t want him anywhere near him. Son 2 kept snaking off under the pillows, crying when he went too fast and bumped the top of his head on the wall.  Son 1 didn’t want him in the middle. In the end I put Son 2 back in the cot and passed out.   We stuck a Wiggles DVD on when they woke, but that didn’t work either.  Son 1 wanted to play with his Tower Of Doom.  I tugged it out from the corner of the room. Son 1 presented me with a dead fly he’d found on it.  We decided to clean it out.  Son 1 pelted off to get the duster.  A four year old in Bob The Builder pyjamas dusting off the battlements with a green feather tickling-stick was weirdly camp.  Son 2 earnestly rubbed with baby wipes.  Imagine. If I’d had girls there’d be a dolls house with matching pink furniture instead of a castle whose residents include a dragon with three heads and a lion with two. 

Son 1 was shrieking loud enough to peel the wallpaper off so I took both boys swimming. The only place that’ll have us is a Hotel Pool - we need more adults everywhere else - too deep for either child to stand.  Which makes it tricky. We had a good time, but Son 1 craves attention and a partner in his games, and Son 2, butch, bullish, braveheart that he is,  isn’t as confident as Son 1 was at the same age.  He can float along on his armbands but sees no reason why he should, and always sends a little fat hand out for my swimming costume.  He got tired, quickly, and pointed at his Tigger robe, draped over a handrail. “Towel. Towel.”  We span it out another 20 minutes.

After lunch we planted out our sunflower plants into big pots ready for our race. Nightmare. Son 2 took out handfuls of compost out of pots and spreading it over our astroturf. http://mumsnet.com/blogs/serenedays/2008/06/11/boiling/ The Man got precious about the astroturf. “Weeds will grow in it.” Son 1 tried fending off Son 2, with predictable results.   It rained. Hard. We eventually got six pots, one each, one for Wonder Nanny and a sparee.  Son 2 looked longingly at the compost in the finished pots and went for a fistful.  I fended him off. With predictable results.  We have new pots, we have six foot 17p bamboo canes, we have our only sunny spot. We are off.

1.  Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part One

2.  Reasons To Be Cheerful,  Part Two

3.  Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part Three

Both boys slept through the evening and the night.  Flags, fireworks, fiesta.  Another Fine Forecast. I suggested ferry, castle and beach.  The Man voted in favour.  Son 1 aged 4y 4m “I like that plan.”  We hurried to get ready.  Son 2 aged 17m was like a caged bear cub.  He was supposed to be in the kitchen with me, so he climbed up the stairs, came into the lounge and tipped my laptop off the table.  Loud bang.  Wah.  Ma-ma.  Ma-ma.  I took him up to the Big Bedroom where Son 1 was watching Citv.  I put my make up on.  “Mummy! Come and see what our baby’s done to the baby wipes!”  Our baby had pulled most of a full packet out, one by one. Climbing on chairs. Climbing on tables. Pulling out toys.  We strapped him in the buggy and fled.

The ferry was fine, Son 2 waved at another ferry, Son 1 came outside and we all stared back at The Town as we chugged away.  The harbour on the other side of The River was a bit dodgy, fishing nets, buoys, ropes and gear everywhere, unfenced, and Son 1 desperate to touch everything.  We bought pies to eat on the beach and he pestered and whined for them.  Till we got to the beach, when suddenly he wasn’t interested.  Over the rocks, into the rock pools.  Climbing, peering, prodding.  Son 2 toddled.  Off. Towards the sea, towards the rocks, away, anywhere.  I put him in his sunsuit and took  his shoes and socks off.  The shingly sand and broken shells on soft baby feet cramped his style.  For a few minutes.  He paddled and played in the water, laughing, splashing, picking up handfuls of tiny stones and letting them go.  Son 1 got in his sunsuit, and climbed and sat and fished with his net.  Another boy joined him, and they played together, refusing to come down when we called.  The beach was near-empty, the water was flat and turquoise,  the sun shone, the light was sharp.  Our coastline is always a joy, but across the deserted river on a still and clear day it was pretty much as it would have been centuries ago.   It would have been an amazing day in August. In February it was a Very Special Gift.   

Son 2 crashed out in the buggy, and we pushed him up to the Castle.  Son 1 was enchanted.  We went up narrow, spiralling stairs, we went down into chambers of cold stone.  At the bottom we saw the cannons in the gun rooms.  We peered through the gun slits: “Can you see an enemy ship?”  “Yes!” “Then Fire!” “Ker-boom!”    We went up to the top.  Son 1 was spooked by the life-size figures of soldiers in the armoury, but then fascinated: “Can I touch them, can I take their shoes off? Can I feel their hair?”  From the top of the turret, we heard Son 2’s wails.  We all went outside.   Son 2 trotted along on his reins, singing, his floppy old man combover hair blowing vertical. Son 1 crawled around under the cannons.  “Son 1! What are you doing?” “Mending the cannons!”  Ferry back, all of us psychotically tired.  I still cooked, pasta in cheese and five veg sauce.  They’ll be starving, I thought.  They’ll gobble it up.  They were.  They did.  We had them both asleep at 1930.  Fireworks. Flags. Fiesta.